But Hector Pierce was tied to his bed. Reed strained his eyes. The figure seemed shorter than Hector Pierce. Dark hair. Slight build.
He couldn’t make out the face. He couldn’t tell who it was.
Chapter 14
The bear stopped at the edge of the woods, gazing down at the town below, the place where it had killed the dog only a few yards away. There were lights there, and human beings, and although it had a strange need to go into this lighted place, to be with these human beings, it did not. It would not go near.
It could not understand or relate to anything in its bear experience what had happened with the men and dogs that night. It had recognized those human beings, although it had never been to this place before. It had recognized them, seen them inside itself, and this had enraged it.
But it would not have eaten and torn so, except that there was something else inside it that was also angered… something that did not belong inside it but was inside it and was angered. Had hated.
So the bear had torn and killed in its angers and irritations. It could not even remember everything it did that night.
It was very frightened.
It somehow knew that these things happening inside it were not over. This thing inside it was very angry. This made the bear agitated, and angry too.
The lights had gone out; the human beings were leaving. A man it had seen inside itself before was the last to leave.
The thing that did not belong inside it was angered as the man left. It wanted the bear to leap, to rip, to kill. But the bear snarled the thing inside away. It kept the thing from making it charge. The bear knew it would not be able to stop this thing very often, but now this thing inside it was very tired.
The bear was tired too.
The bear turned slowly and lumbered back into the dark wood.
Charlie Simpson installed a dead bolt lock on the store’s front door that evening after everyone had left, the strongest one he carried. He felt a little foolish about it; no one had ever broken into the store and it didn’t seem likely that anyone ever would. But strange things were happening, and it just made him feel a little more secure to have the extra lock on. He wondered foolishly if the lock might discourage a bear that size.
He was pretty drunk when he started the job, so it took a while to make the lock secure. When he opened the door to leave, he hesitated before the darkness, then went back to pick up the loaded shotgun he kept under his counter. Again, it seemed a silly thing to be doing, but he had an idea his usual habits had been changed permanently and irrevocably. He’d had to help carry Amos Nickles’s body into the abandoned depot—he hoped the coroner got there before too late tomorrow afternoon—and the feel of the man’s body, emptied of half its capacity of viscera and blood, would stay with him for a long time. No one should die like that.
He sat awhile after climbing into his truck. The woods seemed closer tonight, the sky a little lower. He gazed at the mountain. Incredibly, someone’s campfire seemed to be burning there. But no… he could see the light was moving down the mountain. Someone carrying a lantern. But it was moving so swiftly, as if someone were running down the mountain.
Damn. He must have been half-crazy with exhaustion up there, scared out of his wits, seeing what he did. All that burning hair. Hector Pierce’s story must have been on his mind. But he’d never hallucinated before. Damn strange thing.
He wished Buck were here. Lord, how he wished it. He’d take him home with him, keep him in the house so nothing could get at him. And Charlie wouldn’t have to be alone tonight. Oh, why didn’t he take better care? Lord, Lord, Lord…
He stopped himself. Shivering. Then he started the engine.
Doris Parkey sat in her living room by the window, gazing out at the darkened street. Headlights came up suddenly, then Charlie Simpson’s truck came roaring past the window, spitting gravel everywhere, then it was gone and the street was pitch-black again. They should get streetlights, they really should. The merchants should pay for them; they would be benefiting from them. A body wasn’t safe out in those dark streets, what with everything that had been happening.
Amos Nickles dead. She had seen the body when they brought it back and it like to drove her crazy… she’d never seen the like. Things were turning dark in Simpson Creeks; she wondered sometimes if maybe the apocalypse was coming, the final times, when the dead would be walking the earth.
The dead walking the earth… yeah… that’s what it felt like. That bear like some monster… weren’t no ordinary beast. Jake himself could see that. Told her all about how it had looked, almost a man’s eyes, the vengeful way it attacked them…
They ought to go drive a stake through Amos Nickles’s heart, that’s what they ought to do. No telling when he might get up and start walking.
Doris squinted, peering out into the darkened street. Somebody standing out there. She leaned toward the window. Dark hair and bright eyes. Flashing teeth.
There was a beating on the door. Doris put a hand over her mouth. Gonna scream. Gonna scream I swear to God! She looked around; maybe she could get Mr. Emmanuel up. Maybe he’d protect her.
More beating. “Goddammit, Doris! Let me in!”
She ran to the door. “Jake? That you?”
“Who else would it be this time o’ the goddam night? Let me in!”
Doris unbolted the door, opened it, and Jake Parkey stumbled into the living room. “Body could catch newmonia!” He coughed.
“You’ve been drinking…”
“Off my back, woman!”
“Don’t you talk that way to me, Jake Parkey! Leavin’ me here all to myself, and that Taylor boy just come back… must be something wrong with him!”
Jake turned his head to her with a puzzled look. “Huh? What you mean?”
“Why, he was just here! Standin’ in the street… lookin’ in on me!”
“Oh, you’re crazy, woman! I just left that boy!”
“I tell you it was him, Jake! I know what he looks like!”
Jake went to the window and looked out. “Well… whatever it was… gone now…” He stopped, listened. “What’s that?”
Doris looked at the wall adjoining the slab. She could hear it too. A scratching and a thumping. A movement. But louder than she’d ever heard before, as if something much larger were moving inside the slab. She turned to Jake and laughed. “Why, I don’t hear nothin’, Jake. Must be rats, don’t you suppose?”
Audra Larson finally completed rearranging the furniture, pushing the dresser up in front of her bedroom door so it couldn’t be pushed open. But maybe a bear could do that; she had no idea. At least the window was too small and too high to let in anything larger than a bird. For once she was happy about that.
She looked at the dresser critically, then moved her heavy rocker against it. She had seen Amos Nickles’s body; they’d taken it into the front of the cafe and stretched it out on one of the tables. She started to protest when Jake just shoved her out of the way like a madman. That was when she’d gone back into her quarters in the back of the cafe, and stayed there. Locked herself in.
It was terrible, living in a flimsy place like this, the walls only a couple of inches thick. She didn’t feel safe; a bear could rip his way right through.
She went to the bed and huddled there. She’d heard them when they finally came to get the body. She had no idea where they took it; she hadn’t gone out.